One of the most transforming forces in our lives is being regarded as better than we are.
There is something profound and paradoxical about the way God creates godly people by first justifying the ungodly (Romans 4:5).
Remember, sinner, it is not thy hold of Christ that saves thee–it is Christ; it is not thy joy in Christ that saves thee–it is Christ; it is not even faith in Christ, though that is the instrument–it is Christ’s blood and merits; therefore, look not to thy hope, but to Christ, the source of thy hope; look not to thy faith, but to Christ, the author and finisher of thy faith; and if thou doest that, ten thousand devils cannot throw thee down… There is one thing which we all too much becloud in our preaching, though I believe we do it very unintentionally–namely, the great truth that it is not prayer, it is not faith, it is not our doings, it is not our feelings upon which we must rest, but upon Christ, and on Christ alone. We are apt to think that we are not in a right state, that we do not feel enough, instead of remembering that our business is not with self, but Christ. Let me beseech thee, look only to Christ; never expect deliverance from self, from ministers, or from any means of any kind apart from Christ; keep thine eye simply on Him; let His death, His agonies, His groans, His sufferings, His merits, His glories, His intercession, be fresh upon thy mind; when thou wakest in the morning look for Him; when thou liest down at night look for Him.
–The Forgotten Spurgeon, Iain Murray, 42.
The very nature of modern life is its fragmentation and segmentation into multiple constellations of experience, knowledge, and relationships with each constellation grounded in a specific social and institutional realm of a person’s life. Under such conditions, we experience a fragmentation of consciousness—what someone has recently called, “continous partial attention.” This fragmentation is often reinforced by a world of hyperkinetic activity marked by unrelenting interruption and distraction. On the one hand, such conditions foster a technical mastery that prizes speed and agility, and facility with multiple tasks—for example, using e-mail, I-M, the cell phone, the iPod, all the while eating lunch, holding a conversation, or listening to a lecture. But on the other hand, these very same conditions undermine our capacity for silence, depth of thinking, and focused attention. In other words, the context of contemporary life, by its very nature, cultivates a kind of absence in the experience of “being elsewhere.” Faithful presence resists such conditions and the frame of mind it cultivates.
(J. D. Hunter, To Change the World, 252)
If we are honest, we will admit that there are many passages in the
Bible that are very hard to understand. At least I found it to be true
in my experience. But listen to this quote from Jonathan Edwards, I
found a lot of encouragement in it:
“I am convinced that there are many things in religion and the
Scriptures that are made difficult on purpose to try men, and to
exercise their faith and scrutiny, and to hinder the proud and
self-sufficient” (Miscellanies #139).
Piper further broke down the purposes for which God left us hard to
understand passages:
1. Desperation – To give us a sense of utter dependence on God’s enablement.
2. Supplication – To prompt us to prayer to God for help.
3. Cogitation – To encourage us to thinking hard about biblical texts.
4. Education – To train young people and adults to pray earnestly,
read well, and think hard.
In Luke 19, Zacchaeus the tax collector was converted. He vowed to give back fourfold to anyone he had defrauded. Imagine a conversation he might have had when returning the money.
* * *
“Dad, there’s a man at the door. He said his name is Zacchaeus.”
“Zacchaeus!” Judah’s face flushed with sudden anger. “What does he want?” (more…)
Corinthians 15:1-5:
Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you – unless you believed in vain.
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the salvation of those who
trust him is old news. It is really old, really good news. So what are we
aiming for in hearing again and again that which we’ve heard before?
The hope in hearing the old, good news is that it would perpetually break
new ground in our lives. Our hearts are like a jungle. There is untamed
wilderness and darkness that has not yet been brought, as it were, under the
rule of the One who has laid claim to it all.
We need to hear the gospel again and again so that the old, good news of
Jesus Christ would reach into these uncharted territories of our lives and
fly the flag of its dominion. This is how we are “being saved.” This is what
it means to be overcome by the gospel.
-Jonathan Parnell
George Mueller has for years been a pacesetter for me in prayer. His Autobiography is a veritable orchard of faith-building fruit. In one section he tells us, after 40 years of trials, “how to be constantly happy in God.” He said, “I saw more clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord.”
For ten years, he explained, he went at this backward. “Formerly,when I rose I began to pray as soon as possible and generally spent all my time till breakfast in prayer.” The result: “Often after having suffered much from wandering of mind for the first ten minutes, or quarter of an hour, or even half an hour, I only then began really to pray.”
So Mueller changed his pattern and made a discovery which sustained him 40 years. “I began to meditate on the New Testament, from the beginning, early in the morning… searching into every verse for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul. The result I have found almost invariably is this, that after a very few minutes my soul has been led to confession or to thanksgiving, or to intercession, or to supplication; so that though I did not, as it were, give myself to prayer, but to meditation; yet, it turned almost immediately more or less into prayer.”
I have found Mueller’s way absolutely crucial in my own life: be with the Lord before I am with anyone else and let Him speak to me first.
–John Piper’s comments on George Mueller’s Autobiography
The way to fight lust is to feed faith with the knowledge of an irresistibly glorious God. Do you know God this morning? Are you growing week by week in the knowledge of God’s greatness? Do you meditate on His word day and night? Do you ponder the pictures of His Son in the Gospels?… Do you look at everything in your day as His creation? Do you pray for a sensitive heart that can be ravished by the revelation of His glory? I call you to make those commitments now for the sake of your own soul and for the glory of God.
–John Piper
When, by the grace of God, we have been delivered from grosser forms of sin, we are still liable to the subtle working of self, in our holiest and loveliest hours. It poisons our motive. It breathes decay on our fairest fruit-bearing. It whispers seductive flatteries into our pleased ears. It turns the spirit from its holy purpose, as the masses of iron on ocean steamers deflect the needle of the compass from the pole. So long as there is some thought of personal advantage, some idea of acquiring the praise and commendation of men, some aim at self-aggrandizement, it will be simply impossible to find out God’s purpose concerning us. The door must be resolutely shut against all this, if we would hear the still small voice. All cross-lights must be excluded, if we would see the Urim and Thummim stone brighten with God’s “Yes,” or darken with His “No.” Ask the Holy Spirit to give you the single eye, and to inspire in your heart one aim alone; that which animated our Lord, and enabled Him to cry, as He reviewed His life, “I have glorified Thee on the earth.” Let this be the watchword of our lives, “Glory to God in the highest.” Then our “whole body shall be full of light, having no part dark, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give light.”
–F. B. Meyer, Christian Living
“Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature…” Col.1:15
Colossian saints were in danger of losing a proper sense of the profound power and eminence of Jesus Christ in their own world. Many Christians are like this today. Many true believers appear to have little sense that Jesus is active in their lives here and now. Some churches seem to treat Jesus as the British treat their monarch: they strip him or her of all political power, and do not expect the sovereign to do anything at all except to look good. They treat their monarchs with great respect and reverence, and pay much lip service, but they really do not expect anything from them. That is the way Christians all too often treat the Lord Jesus. This passage calls us back to face the fact of Who Jesus is: simply, He is in charge of the universe!…
This passage is a truly astounding claim. In these brief phrases the apostle points out Christ’s nature as God, His work as Creator, and His continuing relationship to the worlds that He has made… the little boy who was drawing pictures on the floor one day as his mother was working. She said to him, “What are you drawing?” He said, “I’m drawing a picture of God.” “But no one knows what God looks like,” she said. “They will when I get through!” the boy replied. There is a rather profound truth in that story when it is applied to Jesus. It is as though that little Baby lying in the manger in Bethlehem is a picture being drawn for us. It would be proper to say of that Baby that when He finishes His life’s work, men will know what God is like.
– Ray Stedman, Master of the Universe
Once a month our youth holds Devotion Breakfasts (typically on Saturday mornings before Tri-Youth service, see Events Calendar), the purpose of which is to share our Bible devotions experience, and to encourage one another to spend more time in the Word of God. This section is more of an online extension of that time.
If you have material that you would like post here, please forward it to us.
